Rezanov | Page 6

surgeon and naturalist, had accompanied the Embassy to Japan, and although Rezanov had never found any man more of a bore and would willingly have seen the last of him at Kamchatka, a skilful dispenser of drugs and mender of bones was necessary in his hazardous voy- ages, and he retained him in his suite. Langsdorff returned his polite tolerance with all the hidden re- sources of his spleen; but his curiosity and scientific enthusiasm would have sustained him through greater trials than the exactions of an autocrat, whom at least he had never ceased to respect in the most trying moments at Nagasaki.
"Yes," said Rezanov. "But I wonder you find anything to admire in such unportable objects as mountains and water. I have not seen a living thing but gulls and seal, and God knows we had enough of both at Sitka."
"Ah, your excellency, in a land as fertile as this, and caressed by a climate that would coax life from a stone, there must be an infinite number of aquatic and aerial treasures that will add materially to the scientific lore of Europe."
"Humph!" said Rezanov, and moved his shoulder in an uncontrollable gesture of dismissal. But the spell of the April morning was broken, although the learned doctor was not to be the only offender.
The Golden Gate is but a mile in width and the swift current carried the Juno toward a low prom- ontory from the base of which a shrill cry suddenly ascended. Rezanov, raising his glass, saw that what he had taken to be a pile of fallen rocks was a fort, and that a group of excited men stood at its gates. Once more the plenipotentiary on a delicate mission, he ordered the two naval officers sailing the ship to come forward, and retired to the dignified isola- tion of the cabin.
The high-spirited young officers, who would have raised a gay hurrah at the sight of civilized man had it not been for the awe in which they held their chief, saluted the Spaniards formally, then stood in an attitude of extreme respect; the Juno was directly under the guns of the fort.
One of the Spaniards raised a speaking trumpet and shouted:
"Who are you?"
No one on the Juno, save Rezanov, could speak a word of Spanish, but the tone of the query was its own interpreter. The oldest of the lieutenants, through the ship's trumpet, shouted back:
"The Juno--Sitka--Russian."
The Spanish officer made a peremptory gesture that the ship come to anchor in the shelter given by an immense angle of the mainland, of which the fort's point was the western extreme. The Rus- sians, as befitted the peaceful nature of their mis- sion, obeyed without delay. Before their resting place, and among the sand hills a mile from the beach, was a quadrangle of buildings some two hun- dred feet square and surrounded by a wall about fourteen feet high and seven feet thick. This they knew to be the Presidio. They saw the officers that had hailed them gallop over the hill behind the fort to the more ambitious enclosure, and, in the square, confer with another group that seemed to be in a corresponding state of excitement. A few moments later a deputation of officers, accompanied by a priest in the brown habit of the Franciscan order, started on horseback for the beach. Rezanov or- dered Lieutenant Davidov and Dr. Langsdorff to the shore as his representatives.
The Spaniards wore the undress uniform of black and scarlet in which they had been surprised, but their peaked straw hats were decorated with cords of gold or silver, the tassels hanging low on the broad brim; their high deer-skin boots were gaily embroidered, and bristled with immense silver spurs. The commanding officer alone had invested himself with a gala serape, a square of red cloth with a bound and embroidered slit for the head. Leading the rapid procession, his left hand resting significantly on his sword, he was a fine specimen of the young California grandee, dark and dashing and reckless, lithe of figure, thoroughbred, ardent. His eyes were sparkling at the prospect of excite- ment; not only had the Russians, by their nefarious appropriation of the northwestern corner of the continent and a recent piratical excursion in pursuit of otter, inspired the Spanish Government with a profound disapproval and mistrust, but a rumor had run up the coast that made every sea-gull look like the herald of a hostile fleet. This was young Arguello's first taste of command, and life was dull on the northern peninsula; he would have wel- comed a declaration of war.
Davidov and Langsdorff had come to shore in one of the JUNO'S canoes. The conversation was held in Latin between the two men of learning.
"Who are you and whence come you?"